


Peter ^2

by mauvera



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Dimension Travel, Gen, Identity Reveal, This is mostly focused on the Peters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-03
Updated: 2019-01-03
Packaged: 2019-10-03 13:27:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17284895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mauvera/pseuds/mauvera
Summary: What's the general protocol for what to do when a portal opens up in your room and a random homeless guy that doesn't look quite real and is dressed like your secret superhero self falls on top of you?Asking for a friend.





	Peter ^2

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys this story prompt of the Peters meeting was suggested to me on tumblr (mauverawrites.tumblr.com/) by guccipuff
> 
> If anyone else has ideas feel free to send 'em over

“That doesn’t seem right,” Peter mumbled to himself. His fingers clenched around the pen in his hand like it was a weapon as his homework lay forgotten upon the desk as he tried to address the newest threat that had just appeared. Slowly he inched his seat back so he would have enough space to react to any kind of danger. It was probably best to be prepared for that type of situation, especially because his life was already wild enough that the glowing black void that had just appeared in his room, spewing out colourful bubbles, wasn’t the kind of thing he was used to. But it still wasn’t half as alarming as it probably should be. History had shown him that when life gives you mysterious space portals you make lemonade. As long as lemonade comes in the form of preparing yourself for battle. 

 

The portal, which had been hovering ominously in the air for some time by then, suddenly began to gargle. Well, really it sounded like some form of far off, muffled swearing but that didn’t exactly make sense so Peter was just gonna stick with describing it as a gargle. However that thought was soon corrected as the swearing came closer and closer and a large homeless looking man shot out of the portal, landing right on top of Peter. 

 

They groaned in unison. “Ow.”

 

The stranger struggled to right himself before collapsing back down with the kind of total exhaustion that Peter was incredibly familiar with. While normally he’d of course be sympathetic and concerned for the man’s well being he was still very much lying right on top of Peter with no clear sign of getting up and that was a little bit of an inconvenience. 

 

“Uh, hey?” Peter said, entirely unsure as to what the protocol for addressing random portal strangers was. “Do you mind getting off me?” 

 

His grumbled complaint was drowned out by Aunt May’s concerned shout. 

 

“Peter? Are you alright in there?”

 

To his surprise the other man grunted an affirmative at the same time Peter said “yes”. 

 

“Dude, seriously you are  _ not _ light.” He shoved the man off him but instead of standing up like a normal person probably would when they’ve just been ejected from a rip in the fabric of the universe, he simply rolled over onto Peter’s floor and covered his face with his hands. 

 

“Not again. Not again. Not again. Not-” 

 

Peter stopped listening to the guy’s chant of despair when he caught a glimpse of red and was suddenly much more preoccupied with the guy’s outfit. More specifically he was focused on the bright red suit that was barely hidden by a filthy looking overcoat and baggy sweatpants. Also there was a spider emblem on his chest. Huh. 

 

Peter turned back to the man having a crisis on his floor, which was a peculiar sight to say the least. His brown hair was peppered with grey strands and the fat that covered still visible muscles gave an odd impression of a man who did a whole lot of exercise but took a grand total of absolutely no care of himself. If Peter didn’t have Aunt May practically throwing vegetables at him every other day Peter imagined he might be looking like that in a few years time. 

 

Perhaps the weirdest thing - which was kind of an impressive statement considering all of the freaky stuff that had happened in the last two minutes - was that he didn’t quite look… right. It was like the more Peter stared at him the more his eyes had trouble focusing on any particular detail. Light seemed to hit him at odd angles which cast strange shadows across his body. His movements were ever so slightly stilted, like he wasn’t quite all there, or maybe he looked like he was frozen as if he was stuck in a video that kept having to buffer. The more Peter stared the more weird stuff he noticed, like the way all of the man’s clothes had an incredibly subtle dotted effect which seemed to exist entirely independent of any folds or creases in the materials. 

 

This was weird. Everything about this was weird. 

 

“Who are you?” Peter asked when it seemed the man wasn’t going to stop mumbling about this “not happening again” on his own. “And how did you get here?”

 

He watched as he pulled his hands away from his face and managed to affix Peter with an impressively judgmental stare even from his position on the floor. 

 

“I’m getting interrogated by a child? Again? Why does this keep happening to me?” His last question didn’t seem to be directed at Peter but nothing else he said made any sense either so Peter decided to focus on the one thing he could. 

 

“I’m not a child. I’m seventeen and you’re a stranger who just fell through a portal into my bedroom and I want to know who you are.” 

 

Peter jutted out his chin and crossed his arms in an attempt to look intimidating. He’d been trying to get better at the whole interrogation thing in the last few months but he was pretty sure it worked better when he was actually in the suit. And boy did he wish he was right then because he was still suspicious of the what the other man was wearing and he needed answers. 

 

“Why are you dressed like Spider-Man?” He tried when the man still hadn’t responded. 

 

“Oh yeah, this is familiar,” he said to himself before finally looking up at Peter. “I’m dressed like Spider-Man because I  _ am  _ Spider-Man.” 

 

“No you’re not.”

 

“Yes I am.”

 

“Uh no, you’re definitely not.”

 

“How do you know who Spider-Man is?” 

 

Peter struggled to find a valid excuse about why he, a random teenager, would know Spider-Man’s secret identity. He decided to go with a slightly safer course of action. 

 

“Because Spider-Man is pretty young and a, uh, a different shape.”

 

“Pretty sure you just called me fat.” Not-Spider-Man said, slowly getting to his feet. He arched back with an impressive array of cracking noises down his spine. Not-Spider-Man continued to mindlessly stretch as he peered around Peter’s bedroom, a small frown working its way onto his face. 

 

“This place looks weird.” Peter’s indignation must’ve shown on his face because the man just looked at him in confusion, “What?” 

 

“You just called my room weird.”

 

“Not your room, your universe. It’s weird.”

 

“My universe,” Peter repeated slowly, “is weird.”

 

“Yup.”

 

_ Huh _ , Peter thought to himself with surprising calm,  _ I’ve finally gone insane.  _

 

“So what? You’re from another universe. Is that it?”

 

“Yup.” The man said before promptly turning around to retreat back into the portal. The portal that was missing. “Damn it.”

 

“How’d you do that?” Peter asked. 

 

“Do what?”

 

“Make the portal disappear.”

 

“I didn’t.”

 

“Well how are you going to get back to your universe?” Really, he couldn’t believe he was actually indulging him in the whole “different universes” theory but as the real Spider-Man it was his responsibility to make sure this guy wasn’t about to go around terrorising the city and making more mysterious portals appear. “Wait. Hey. Stop trying to climb out of my window and answe-”

 

Peter’s voice trailed off into silence when the man hiked his leg up and stepped through the window and promptly crawled over the fire escape to walk down the wall. For a few seconds he simply watched, seeing for the first time just how strange it was to witness someone defying gravity like that. Not-Spider-Man-But-Maybe-Spider-Man turned around to glance back up at Peter who returned his gaze unflinchingly. He looked almost disappointed that Peter hadn’t come wall-walking after him.  _ Well some of us actually have secret identities to maintain, thank you very much. _

 

The man continued to walk away after that, as though Peter was seriously about to let him leave so easily. In all of twenty seconds he was in the suit and crawling out the window right after him. 

 

_ Okay, so there’s a hobo Spider-Man loose in the city who maybe comes from a different universe and looks like he’s cgi. Maybe he’s a hologram. Wait no, he fell on me. Okay not a hologram.  _

 

Peter’s internal monologue halted at a small flash of red that he caught in the corner of his eye. Immediately he changed direction midair, shooting a new web to pull himself closer to the already disappearing shape. His feet pounded across rooftops, each step bringing him closer to the strange man who seemed far too adept at avoiding Peter, it was like he knew whenever he was getting close and would manage to slip away at the last moment. 

 

“Karen? Can you plot the quickest route to intercept this guy?” Normally Peter tried to avoid relying too heavily on his AI for directions, he wouldn’t want to be caught unprepared if anything happened to her after all but this guy was seriously becoming a pain in his ass. With her directions in his ear Peter diverted from his current path and slipped down a side alley, he stayed low to the ground in case the other man could’ve seen his previous movements. With every pull on a web he knew he was closing the distance between them. 

 

Surprisingly, it was kinda fun chasing this guy. Over the last few years of being Spider-Man Peter had gotten far too used to petty criminals who barely made it two streets before he caught up to them, but now? Well now he got to actually enjoy the chase for once. His heart thrummed with excitement every time he had to actually think before taking a leap, the sheer volume of visual information he was acquiring as he moved was thrilling. Each step was a calculated move in a constant battle to find the best route, the best plan, the best way to catch a guy who seemed to know the heights of New York almost as well as Peter did. 

 

In fact, it was maybe only his knowledge of the streets that let him finally catch up. The Maybe-But-Not-Spider-Man had been almost flawlessly moving across rooftops until he took a running leap, shot a web out to curve around a building and promptly slammed right into a bodega he hadn’t known was there.

 

Peter did not laugh as he landed beside the groaning heap on the ground. He didn’t, really. 

 

Okay… he might’ve giggled a little bit. 

 

The man picked himself up off the ground to glare at the person laughing at him, his eyes widening when he registered the suit Peter wore.

 

“Spider-Man?” He asked, relief filling his voice. “I have to talk to you.”

 

_ Didn’t wanna talk when I was trying to catch you before, huh? _

 

“Who are you?”

 

“How many times do I have to explain this?” He muttered under his breath, “I. Am. Spider-Man.”

 

“Uh-”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re the one and only Spider-Man. Except you’re not. And I’m from another dimension that I would like to return to before my atoms start decaying. Again.” Perhaps the most convincing thing the Peter had seen all day was the sheer exhaustion on Maybe-Spider-Man’s face. “Also I want to get out of this universe in particular because it looks real weird.”

 

“Dude, stop calling my dimension weird,” Peter grumbled, only to immediately regret that when Maybe-Spider-Man stared up at him with wide eyes.

 

“Aw, no way. You’re that kid in the bedroom.”

 

“Ah, n-no I’m not,” he stuttered before remembering to deepen his voice. “I’m not a kid, I’m a man.”

 

Maybe-Spider-Man just leveled his gaze at Peter, entirely disbelieving. 

 

“Peter, come on.”

 

He could feel himself halt in place, his blood was alight with sudden anxiety “How do you know my name?” 

 

“Well first of all, the lady in your house called you Peter and you responded. I’m going to assume that’s your Aunt May right?” Peter almost nodded numbly before remembering he very much shouldn’t be giving away any details about his  _ secret _ identity. “Yeah I’m totally right.” The man nodded to himself, pleased that he was doing far too well at uncovering literally every secret Peter had been trying to keep for the past two years. “Your last name is Parker isn’t it?” 

 

_ There is no way he can know all this. _

 

“Look, kid, I know what you’re thinking,”  _ No you don’t, _ “You’re all like ‘Wow how can this charming and brilliant man know all of this about my super secret identity’”  _ That’s a terrible impression of me _ , “Well the answer is that I am you. I’m Peter Parker.”

 

A part of him wanted to believe him, the rest just wanted to scream. Instead of doing that he unfortunately decided instead to just gesture to the nearest tall building so they could get off the street and avoid the steadily growing crowd that had gathered to watch Spider-Man talk down to a random homeless guy half dressed up like him. 

 

The pair made their way up to the top of the building, Peter watching Not-Peter’s every move. He certainly acted like a Spider-Man, seriously there was a surprising amount of grace that managed to cram it’s way inside a body like that. It was the kind of grace that came from years of swinging through the city.  _ Maybe he’s not so insane. _

 

Both Peters landed at the same time, although one seemed to pitch forward like he wasn’t quite sure of his own weight. “Why does your universe feel so heavy?” He wondered aloud. Peter just shrugged uncertainly. “Alright kid well, this has been fun but I’ve got to find a way back home. Do you have a Doc Ock here?” He asked, peering around like a supervillain was just going to show up on command, “It’s usually a Doc Ock responsible for this kind of stuff.”

 

Peter was unsure how to react to what was happening before him, really someone needs to write a manual on how to deal with becoming a superhero because he was in no way prepared for all the weird shit that keeps happening to him. 

 

The universe probably just had it out for Peter, at least, that’s what he decided must be happening because just as he opened his mouth to try and interrogate Other Peter another portal formed right on top of them and two more figures came tumbling out. 

 

“Ow,” Peter complained, rubbing his backside that had just been pushed back down onto the hard roof tiles. Did this just happen whenever a portal opened? He’d just get thrown to the ground? If so, he would like portals to stop appearing right on top of him please and thank you. 

 

“Peter!” 

 

At the sound of a girl’s voice calling his name with such enthusiasm Peter’s brain nearly short circuited. Then he watched as the same girl in frankly the coolest spider-themed costume he’d ever seen run straight past him to help Other Peter up. Ah, yes. That made more sense. 

He watched the other Spider-Person, who was decked out in black and red,  _ also cool _ , who hovered uncertainly near him.

 

“So I’m guessing you’re Spider-Man too huh?” The boy asked.

 

“Yeah, seems like I’m not the only one,” was all Peter could manage to reply. The boy huffed a laugh as he leaned back, crossing his arms. He was acting like jumping through inter dimensional portals was just something that people did. “Do you do this often?”

 

“Huh?” 

 

“Y’know, the jumping to different universes thing. Is this some kind of Spider-Man power I just don’t have?” He was not jealous. He refused to be jealous. 

 

He was definitely jealous.

 

The other boy just laughed though, immediately relieving Peter’s fear. “Nah man, this is all the work of this insane scientist from my world. Gwen, that girl over there yelling at Peter, figured out a way to do small dimension hops, without using a giant super collider like the scientist did. So sometimes she shows up so we can all hang out.”

 

Okay. Cool. So there were just a bunch of Spider-People that all hung out together and took down evil scientists as a team and Peter hadn’t been invited. That’s fine. No problem.

 

“This isn’t it though right?” Peter glanced around at the three invading Spiders. He may have missed half his physics classes that year because of Spider-Man business but he knew enough about the multiverse theory to be sure that there were more than just the four of them. Probably. Maybe. The other boy just looked over at him in confusion, his eye lenses expanding comically. 

 

Oh. Woah. 

 

He honestly couldn’t explain how it happened but in the last few minutes of looking at Other Peter he had somehow let himself become accustomed to the strange way he looked, so much so that he hadn’t even noticed that New Spider-Man and, uh… Gwen? Was it Gwen? Yeah. New-Spider-Man and Gwen also had that peculiar look to them. New-Spider-Man still appeared just as solid as the Peters but he kept that same jerkiness to him. His every movement like he was built of a series of stills in a movie not like a fully living breathing person. The way his mask shifted to show his expression was also fascinating, Peter’s lenses were built in with a camera that could zoom in and out but his just looked like it was naturally molding to fit his expression beneath it. It was freaky but kind of also the coolest thing he’d ever seen in his life. 

 

“No, this isn’t all of us,” New-Spider-Man said, completely oblivious to the way Peter was watching his every movement and staring at the, what was it? Cross hatching? That covered his body like shadows. “I’ve only met a few more Spider-People.” They paused together, both watching Gwen who was still yelling at Other Peter for somehow managing to get lost in an inter dimensional wormhole. 

 

New-Spider-Man glanced over at him, one eye lens widening in curiosity, “You wouldn’t happen to be a Peter would you?”

 

“Okay there is definitely no way you should know that. Wait. Are you also another me?” He couldn’t help the excitement bubbling up in his chest, curious to see what this other, obviously much younger Spider-Man looked like beneath the mask. It was like he was going to see himself rendered in 3D animation and not in a hobo version of himself.

 

To his surprise though the other boy just let out a rueful laugh and tugged his own mask off, revealing dark skin and curly hair. “Nah. ‘Name’s Miles.” He stuck out a hand for Peter to shake which he did far too enthusiastically, fascinated by the chance to actually touch a living animation that wasn’t busy sitting on top of him. The hand in his felt shockingly solid, Miles was as much a person as he was even if he could never quite focus his eyes on him quite right.  _ Definitely weird.  _

 

“How’d you know I’m a Peter then? Are Spider-People just various Peters, Miles’ and Gwens?” 

 

Miles looked thoughtfully into the distance, “I mean, kind of? Well, actually no. I’m pretty sure Peters are the most common. I’m the only Miles and she’s the only Gwen I know, but you’re the fourth Peter I’ve met.” He paused, “Okay well, fifth if we’re counting Peter Porker.” At Peter’s confused glance he just shrugged “It’s a long story.”

 

“Riiggght.”

 

The two Spiders let their conversation devolve into silence as Other Peter and Gwen made their way over to them. Other Peter managed to look astounding chastised and simultaneously indifferent to what was happening while Gwen simply rigged off her mask. 

 

“Cool hair,” was all Peter could think to say to her, no longer surprised to see she seemed to also be equally as visually misplaced as the other two. She shot him a quick grin and followed it up with a subtle glare in Miles’ direction before turning back to Peter, sticking her hand out for him to shake.

 

“I’m Gwen. Also known as Spider-Woman and I’m guessing you’re a Peter too aren’t you?” He nodded, not even bothering to be surprised that she could guess his identity so quickly. It seemed to be a theme. “Well Peter, lovely dimension you’ve got here, but we really didn’t mean to crash in here and interrupt you.”

 

“It’s alright, I guess,” he said. “Kind of cool really.”

 

Miles grinned at him, lifting his hand for Peter to fist bump. “Man you’re taking this way better than I did.”

 

“What’d you do?”

 

Miles grinned sheepishly, glancing at Other Peter who was busy staring blankly at him. “I might’ve knocked him unconscious.” More glaring. “And nearly killed him.” More glaring. “And tied him up. And interrogated him.”

 

Other Peter finally nodded, glad that the blame had been properly placed at last. 

 

“Right, because that’s a normal reaction.” Gwen laughed. 

 

A pleasant silence settled over them. The four of them too busy peering around and the world around them to bother with conversation. Well, the three foreign spiders were looking at his world curiously but Peter was still fascinated by the way they looked themselves. 

 

He was just getting used to the way Gwen’s  hair seemed to move almost independently of her when she turned to back to them. 

 

“Alright guys, we should probably get out of here,” Peter tried not to let the disappointment he’d suddenly felt swell up in his chest show but she seemed to have caught on anyway. “Peter?” Both Peter’s looked at her curiously, “New Peter,” she clarified, “You wouldn’t want to come with us would you?”

 

So it turns out that it took all of three seconds before Peter found himself nodding enthusiastically. Miles grinned at him, while Other Peter simply nodded appraisingly. The four spiders on the roof huddled together, all clasping onto another’s hands at Gwen’s insistence that  _ some people _ didn’t get lost on the way. 

 

A portal opened before them, swirling blackness framed by bubbles of colour that seemed to spew forth into his universe. Ha.  _ His universe.  _ Peter took one final glance around, his New York that seemed to solid and real, so individual and unique. And then with one more step into the inky darkness he was gone. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> So far this is all I have for this fic but if you'd like to see me continue it/have any ideas let me know :)


End file.
